Learning
by Agent Mercury
Summary: Sequel to Finding Purpose. Tirzah succeeds in copying her consciousness into the Matrix, then finds an unlikely job and a more unlikely friend.
1. Chapter 1

The two women sitting in the apartment appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be perfectly normal. Two friends having tea, the redhead looked slightly older than the other, if only because of the look in her gray eyes. If her eyes looked much too old for her years, what was that? Many people had experiences in life that made them seem much older than their years. The other woman, with neon pink hair and incongruous dark gold eyes, didn't seem to have quite the same air of gravity. The conversation, though, was anything but normal. To anyone on the street it might've seemed entirely incomprehensible.

"It's absolutely not that I think it can't be done, Tirzah. I'm sitting here, aren't I?" The redhead took a sip of her tea and rearranged a delicate, hand knit shawl draped across her shoulder. "It's that I don't understand why anyone would want to do it in the first place."

Tirzah, the younger of the two, scowled and crumbled the edge off a perfectly browned shortbread biscuit. "And I can't see how you don't understand that. Everyone wants what you have."

"No. Everyone THINKS they want what I have. You haven't even lived half as long as I have, and none of you have any idea what I went through after the accident."

"You didn't intend for it to happen, and you didn't know how to manage after the event. But because of you, we will! If it's intentional, it won't be the same situation at all."

Tirzah had jacked in with the rest of the team from the Elbereth. Ostensibly they were here to visit the Oracle and to pick up a new potential. One more redpill joining the ranks. Tirzah had also come to visit Etna and let her know how research was going.

Etna was not a coppertop or a bluepill. Nor was she a program or a redpill, precisely; she was a little of both. Almost 80 years ago, Etna had been "rescued" from life in the simulated reality of the Matrix. For a few years she'd crewed a ship, jacking out other redpills and living the life on the run that was common to so many Zionites.

That had changed during what was supposed to be a test. A new type of broadcast had been developed, and Etna had volunteered to be the first to hack into the Matrix using the new signal. It had gone horribly wrong. Beset by agents inside the Matrix and sentinels outside, Etna's ship fought a pitched battle to escape while she frantically looked for an exit. She had never found one, and the ship's captain had made the heart-wrenching, fateful decision to use the EMP on the sentinels outside. The EMP should have disrupted the signal, cutting off Etna from the Matrix and killing her instantly.

What happened was something entirely different: something about the EMP, the experimental broadcast, and the ship's proximity to a server farm hosting the Matrix program had all combined to result in the impossible: Etna's consciousness was somehow copied into the vast system of storage that housed the Matrix. Her physical body had been unable to withstand the trauma, and she'd been left inside the Matrix with no possibility of getting out again. Etna had become a human program: a human consciousness existing only in code.

For 60 years, she'd lived, never aging, in the Matrix as the friends and family she'd known died one by one. Immortality had been a very lonely, very painful business for Etna until an extremely unlikely Exile accidentally changed that.

Smith, the Agent program defeated by The One, had remained in the Matrix. Still rogue, code corrupted by all those programs and people he'd copied over, and ostensibly without any sort of purpose, he'd been in bad shape when Etna found him. An entirely dysfunctional roommate relationship had become a very unlikely friendship, which had then turned into love and completely changed them both. Etna regained some sort of sense of humanity, instead of simply seeming to wait for a death that was never going to come for her. It had changed Smith enough that he was the sole reason Tirzah was here at all; he'd taken a bullet that would otherwise have killed her. His self-sacrifice had solidified the truce between human and machine. He and Etna were both given new purpose after the ordeal: Etna was allowed to remain in the Matrix as something of a human counterpart to the Oracle and the Architect while Smith became a challenge-authorization program for her. Many people, program and human alike, wanted access to Etna for one reason or another. To get it, one had to get through Smith--a very daunting prospect not only because of his skill, but also his intense devotion to Etna, which she returned just as fiercely. Among their friends, however, Smith was known mainly for his cynical, dry wit and his excessive fondness for sweets.

It was in Etna & Smith's apartment that Tirzah sat now, eating shortbread Etna had baked. She knew there wasn't much of a point in either the tea or the biscuits, as they were merely code, but she had to admit Etna had become one hell of a cook in the 20 years she'd been working with the Oracle. Etna claimed it was the only thing she'd learned; she was still much better at the clinical, objective work she did with the Architect. Tirzah wasn't certain. She'd seen Etna manipulate redpills & coppertops alike into doing what needed to be done to ensure the safety of the Matrix. She took another bite of her cookie.

"They have a name for you now, you know," Tirzah said, changing the subject slightly.

"Other than, say, Etna? 'Anomaly' seems popular around here," Etna said dryly.

"They've been calling you The Infinite," Tirzah told her. "Immortal."

Etna pinned her with a look. "And some of them call me The Abomination. I know this because Smith killed one of them within a dozen feet of me last Friday." Tirzah's mouth went dry; she had not realized how much Etna knew about the fanatics. Etna rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. "Tirzah, I can't tell you what to do. I know you've given your whole life to this research, and I respect that. But you need to know there is more to this than simple 'immortality'. Humans are not meant for immortality, and there is a major period of psychological adjustment that not just anyone is ready for, no matter what they themselves may think. You need to tread lightly with this."

Tirzah scowled again. "I know, I know. I will, and I promise to be careful."

"That's all anyone can ask. Now, if I'm not mistaken, the rest of your crew is about to knock on my door."

They did. Gaia, Freja, Rhiannon, and Radha all trooped in, ate cookies, drank tea, & gossiped. Visits to the Matrix were not the furtive, high-risk affairs they'd once been. The peace between humans and machines had resulted in a very different place, and while Zionites jacking back into the Matrix were encouraged not to make a spectacle of themselves, they were no longer actively hunted. In any case, there was no more talk of Tirzah and her research. After a leisurely visit, they left; Etna gave Tirzah a knowing, warning look as they went.

On the way to the exit point, talk turned in its usual risque direction. The crew of the Elbereth was all female, and over the last few years that had made for some very lively discussion.

"Anyone spot anything...interesting...today?" Gaia asked with a bit of an eyebrow raise.

A few sighs went up. "Nothing," Freja said. "Not a single agent."

"Well," Rhiannon giggled. "I DID see Smith in the hallw--"

"DON'T," Tirzah growled. "Great gods, that's disgusting. He's like my FATHER or something. Ew."

"Just because he feels like YOUR father doesn't mean the rest of us can't think he's hot," Radha pointed out, also giggling.

Tirzah made a gagging noise. "Fine. But do you have any idea what Etna would do to you if she knew you were oggling him?" Etna would laugh and roll her eyes, but the other girls didn't know that. Radha & Rhiannon's faces blanched.

"I've heard she can kill you just by thinking about it," Freja said.

"That's ridiculous," Gaia pointed out, sounding as though she might believe it herself. "I did see Etna and Smith in a sparring simulation once." She shuddered a little. "I couldn't decide if it was fighting or foreplay, but I'm pretty sure it would kill normal people." Tirzah snorted at the exaggeration.

"I was hoping to get a look at Brown, myself," said Freja. "He lives in the same apartment building, you know."

"Thompson is supposed to be patrolling our exit area today," Tirzah said slyly. She'd gotten the information from Etna just before leaving. "Shall we start something and see who comes running?"

With the war years behind them, the younger redpills no longer saw Exiles and agents in quite the same way as previous generations. In fact, a curiosity had grown up around them, as it always does something slightly forbidden, slightly dangerous. On the Elbereth, the curiosity had taken on a rather naughty aspect. In a crew of all women, speculation had arisen about the sexual nature of agents. Smith obviously had one, given his relationship with Etna; what about the rest of the agents? From there, both imaginations and conversations had run wild. Each jaunt into the Matrix was a chance to ogle an agent and fuel discussion and debate for weeks.

They walked a few blocks and, guided by their Operator, finally neared their exit. "It's now or never, ladies! Anyone care for a bit of mischief?" Gaia giggled, jumping onto a nearby bench.

"I would advise against it," came the deep, masculine voice from behind the crew. The women whirled around, and Tirzah found herself nose to nose with Agent Thompson. Or nose to chin, rather, given the height difference. Tirzah was a tall woman.

"Hellooooo, Agent! That was impressively quick." Gaia said airily, jumping down from the bench again. "And to what do we owe this honor?" She sounded very, very innocent.

"The system received a tip you would be exiting in this area, and ordered an escort to make certain there were no disturbances." He seemed almost bored.

"'Ordered an escort'? Remind me to send Etna a thank-you card..." Freja said under her breath.

"And whatever kind of disturbances would you expect from us, Agent Thompson?" Rhiannon asked silkily.

"I'm here to escort you to the exit," Thompson said, ignoring Rhiannon entirely. "Please follow me." He began walking toward the building housing the exit.

"Ooo, happily," Radha said, not even bothering to hide the innuendo. She was unabashedly staring at Thompson's rear.

It only took a few minutes to reach the exit point. There was no way Thompson could've missed all the innuendo and comments, but if he noticed he didn't react.

"Thank you ever so much for the escort, Agent Thompson," Gaia said, eyeing him boldly. "Well, ladies, what's our order today?"

"I'm bringing up the rear," Tirzah said. Gaia went first, followed by Freja, Rhiannon, and Radha. Tirzah replaced the phone on the hook and waited for her own call. She decided to take a bit of a chance.

"So what do you guys do for fun, anyway?" she asked nonchalantly.

Thompson eyed her blankly. This was the first time a redpill had attempted to engage him in any sort of conversation. "Fun?" he asked blandly.

"In your free time. When you're not chasing people or shooting people or being..." she looked him up and down, "tall and intimidating?"

"Neither my height nor my demeanor ever changes, Miss Greene. And I do not have 'fun'. Do not confuse the rest of us with the corrupted Smith program."

The use of her Matrix name rankled her, so by the time he called Smith "corrupted", Tirzah was already irritated. "Corrupted?" she snapped, eyes narrowing.

"Corrupted," Thompson repeated. "He was reassigned to The Anomaly merely because his flaw makes him unsuited for anything else."

"Flaw? Which 'flaw'?!" Tirzah growled. "The fact that he loves Etna makes him 'less' than you?" Given that he'd saved her life, insulting Smith was the fastest way to send Tirzah into a rage.

Thompson nodded. "Correct." Tirzah's eyes flashed. Her arm seemed to shoot out of its own accord. Thompson caught her fist inches from his own jaw. His fingers were firm on hers; she could not have removed herself from his grip if she'd tried. She gritted her teeth, longing for Etna's abilities. They stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds, the only sound Tirzah's teeth grinding audibly. The phone rang. Thompson released her hand.

"That would be for you," he said, tone flatter than usual. Tirzah hissed, insulted Thompson's parentage in extremely creative terms, and lifted the receiver. She was gone in a flash of code.

Tirzah's eyes blinked open into the dim light of the Elbereth. After the few seconds it took her to regain focus she shook her head & sat up slightly in her chair, only to see the rest of the crew staring at her as though she'd grown a third arm.

"You threw a punch at Thompson," Gaia informed her. "Threw a PUNCH at him."

Freja, Rhiannon, and Radha were staring at her, still dumbfounded. Binah, the operator's, jaw was hanging open, and she kept looking from the screens of emerald code scrolling behind her to Tirzah and back again.

"I guess I did. You saw what he said about Smith."

"And therefore you tried to punch someone who could snap you like a twig. You do remember he nearly killed both Morpheus and Trinity, right?" Rhiannon pointed out. The stories from the war were the stuff of modern legend, but at least that one was fairly accurate.

"Wasn't really thinking that clearly," Tirzah admitted, embarrassed. She was not precisely the best hand-to-hand fighter; Thompson _could_ have snapped her like a twig. And according to the terms of the treaty, would've been within his rights to do so, as she'd "attacked" him. Why hadn't he?

Echoing her thoughts, Radha had found her voice. "Why DIDN'T he?" she mused aloud. Then her face brightened mischievously, and the conversation took the turn it always did. "He wants you, Tirzah. That has to be it." She nodded as though this settled the entire question.

Gaia snickered. "Uh-huh. Mr. Ice-Water-for-Blood-Agent has the hots for Tirzah. That explains everything."

"He's just sitting in his car right now," Binah commented, bouncing in her seat. "What did his hand feel like?"

Tirzah ran a hand through her extremely short, sandy blonde hair. She always went for a different color when she jacked in, but in the real, she'd kept her hair this way for years. Her eyes were a very dark, liquid brown. It was easier to concentrate on research when she didn't worry about things like appearance in general. "That's right. Agent Thompson is sitting in his car, thinking about his desperate, unrequited love for me as we speak. And his hand felt like a hand. A rather large, slightly cold, kinda soft hand." It had been surprisingly soft, and he'd obviously been trying not to hurt her. She hadn't the first clue why, and wasn't going to let it distract her now. She hopped up from the plug chair and turned to Binah.

"What's our depth? What's our proximity to the server farm? Do you have the readouts from our broadcast?" Her mind had whirled back to her research on Etna's accident, and thoughts of Agent Thompson had all but vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

The girls had gone and Thompson sat behind the wheel of his Audi. The system chattered away in his earpiece, but he wasn't really listening. The girl, Miss Greene, had tried to physically assault him. According to protocol, that meant he could engage and terminate her.

So why hadn't he? He knew her history with and feelings toward the Smith program & the anomaly Etna. It had not been necessary to answer her question at all. Had he been trying to provoke her? To what end? When he'd blocked her punch, he'd made certain he simply restrained her without damaging her.

He knew via the system who Miss Greene was, and what she was currently researching. If she was indeed close to finding the answer to The Anomaly's situation, there was possible merit in the study. It made sense to allow her a bit of freedom if she was going to contribute something valuable to the knowledge of the machines. It still didn't explain why he'd provoked her. He resolved not to allow it to happen again in the future.

It didn't stop him pondering it. He went through his usual routine for the next few weeks, thinking about the entire ordeal at intervals. On a slow Friday evening, the system called in an order for him to report to an apartment complex for a disturbance; he recognized it as the apartment complex in which Smith & Etna lived. It was in a highly populated, affluent area of the city, and any redpill disturbances would be extremely disruptive in such a location.

By the time he pulled up, a crowd had gathered. He recognized members of the crew he'd escorted out on the day Miss Greene had tried to hit him. He stepped out of the black car and began to wade through the crowd, which parted as he passed.

Miss Greene sat on a bench, gasping for breath and shaking. Thompson mentally noted both of these things as unnecessary, but couldn't dwell on it for long. One crewmate was sitting beside her on the bench, arms around her, and another was screaming into a cell phone.

"No, no no. NO! TRY AGAIN. It's just supposed to be a COPY! She's supposed to wake up!" She was panicking, her voice high pitched and near tears.

Miss Miller, who went by the alias Freja, looked up, noticing Thompson for the first time. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out and she looked back down. Miss Greene was still shaking, but she looked up at him as well.

"I need...Etna..." she shook her head as if shaking something off. She started again. "Thompson, could you please get Etna?" Her hair, normally long and a different, eye-gouging color every time he saw her, was short and dark blonde; her eyes were a very dark brown, very unlike the inhuman colors she usually sported. At the moment they were filled with uncertainty and fear.

With no idea what was going on, Thompson sent a request through the system. No response, the system told him. He would never understand why the Architect had given Etna a connection and an earpiece if she wasn't going to use them. He conveyed the lack of response to Miss Greene, who whimpered and pulled her feet up on the bench, burying her face in her knees. There was something different about her, aside from the obvious superficial things. The code making up her RSI was different; it was chaotic, complex. It looked somehow deeper than it usually did, and deeper than that of her crewmates. He considered her for a moment, then turned on his heel and entered the apartment complex. It seemed important that he contact Etna. He couldn't have said why.

He skipped the elevator entirely and headed up the stairs as Etna herself floated down, her arm in Smith's. They were evidently headed to Club Hel, by their dress; both were in solid black but for Etna's long, dark red scarf and Smith's dark red silk tie. She was wearing what must've been a small fortune in jewelry set with crimson stones. Etna's earpiece was nowhere to be found, but Smith was wearing his. Thompson berated himself for not thinking of that. Smith smirked at Thompson; it was more than a little maddening how such an obviously flawed program maintained such a level of arrogance, even with the very high status afforded him as Etna's firewall.

Thompson ignored Smith. "Miss Greene is outside, and asked me to contact you. She appears to be in considerable distress."

Etna's brows furrowed and Smith had the look of someone sending a request to the system. His eyes widened behind his sunglasses, which he then removed. "She's done it, Etna." It was Etna's turn to look startled, and without waiting for either Smith or Thompson, she took off at a dead run down the stairs.

Smith cursed and followed, with Thompson right beside him. "How does she do that in those shoes?" Smith said under his breath. Thompson would not have thought to make that observation, but now that Smith brought it up, he wondered as well.

They were only a few steps behind Etna, who was now crouching in front of Miss Greene and Miss Miller. Miss Grace was still screaming into her phone, drawing a bigger crowd by the instant. Etna tried to say something to Miss Greene, but over the din it was impossible to hear. "Please shut Rhiannon up," Etna hissed at Smith, but Thompson was closer. He unceremoniously plucked the bright pink phone from Miss Grace's hand and snapped it shut. "Thank you," Etna told him, and nodded at him gratefully. He blinked, unused to being thanked for anything. The Anomaly was rather unsettling to deal with. She was already on to something else, speaking loudly about something. It sounded like a made-up reason for Miss Greene's public display.

"You're better off without him anyway, dear." Thompson heard mutters in the gathered crowd; derisive remarks about the imaginary man who'd hurt this poor girl. He was once again amazed at the Anomaly's way of dealing with things. She was playing this off so nothing in the Matrix had to be reset; he had heard her refer to the process as "cheating". She already had Miss Greene off the bench and was walking her toward the door. Smith shadowed her as always, but she motioned for Thompson to follow. "You might as well come up, since you're here." The crewmates followed, Miss Grace again on the phone, but more quietly this time, and eyeing Thompson warily.

In Etna's apartment, Miss Grace snapped her phone shut and explained. "I don't even begin to grasp the concept," she said, "but she figured out the copying part. Apparently the hard part was determining the amount of energy needed to do it. It was supposed to just COPY her here, but the energy surge was too much." She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. "It fried her brain stem."

Comprehension dawned on Thompson. The woman's code had looked different because it was different. He was no longer seeing the code for the relatively simple RSI--it was the code for a human consciousness. Miss Greene was no longer simply jacked into the Matrix--she was entirely inside it. "Your body did not survive the copy," he said. It wasn't a question. Miss Greene made a choking sound, shook her head, and leaned into Etna's arms. No one said anything. Miss Miller wasn't even ogling him. For the first time he could remember, Thompson felt distinctly uncomfortable. He thought he might be feeling pity or sympathy; he shoved the errant emotion as far away as he could.

Smith came in from the kitchen carrying several mugs. It was a recognizable human trait, to offer beverages when guests were in the house. To his very great surprise, Smith handed him one, too; the mugs contained coffee. Smith was well-known for his love of coffee. He pointed to the sugar container on the sideboard. "It takes a lot of that, but it's actually rather good once you've gotten it right."

Thompson blinked at him. "You mean for me to drink this?"

Smith smirked again in that arrogant way. "Of course not, Thompson. I mean for you to stand there and look pretty," he sneered. It annoyed Thompson enough to take a drink, but not to sugar the stuff. He was surprised again when he liked it; it had a smooth but bitter taste, and the warmth felt good. He looked at it, then looked at Smith. The smirk had actually turned into a very small smile. Thompson kept drinking the coffee.

No one else looked much more comfortable than Thompson. Both redpills seemed terrified of their own crewmate. They seemed as though they'd rather be anywhere but in the room. Etna, on the other hand, was still holding Miss Greene. Her stone gray eyes had a strange look in them; he supposed it was pity, but perhaps maybe sadness and understanding. He knew she'd been through precisely the same event, and she was old--from such an early version of the Matrix that record of her name had been archived & could not be accessed by a regular agent. Much older than Miss Greene, than the code that had produced Thompson. Smith may have been the only one in the room older than Etna, but Thompson didn't know much about the first version of the agent codes. Smith was looking at Etna, and the look on his face was entirely different than when he looked at anyone else. His frigid blue eyes seemed warm, and his mouth seemed just on the verge of a smile. He always looked the same when he was looking at her.

Miss Greene had leaned back into the cushions of the couch and sighed, taking a sip of the mug Etna handed her. "What now?" she asked plaintively. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Right now, you sleep," Etna answered firmly.

"I mean long term! I'm here, and I'm useless here! What am I supposed to do?" she sounded panicked, which was unusual for her.

Thompson was startled to see that Etna was looking at him, or possibly through him. Either way, she looked consideringly in his direction, then patted Miss Greene and gave her a reassuring look. "Stop worrying about it. I have an idea."


	3. Chapter 3

The Architect had come into the apartment as Thompson was leaving to escort the redpills back to the exit. Both were very subdued during the short walk, and they all walked in silence until they arrived.

"We left her there, with Etna, but now we have to go back and bury her in the real," Miss Miller said. Her voice was hollow and she was staring through the phone. Miss Grace made a choking sound. Miss Miller put her arm around her, blinked back tears and looked up at him. "How...what are we supposed to do with that? How does that make any sense at all?"

He thought of Miss Greene back at Etna & Smith's apartment, probably still sobbing. He looked at the sad women in front of him, looking empty & frightened. Odd as it seemed, he thought he might pity them. He'd never had that feeling before, and now here it was twice in one night. She seemed to want an answer, though, so he spoke. "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

She jumped, as though startled he'd spoken. "That's...I'm..." she looked confused, then smiled at him in a melancholy way. "Thanks." The phone rang, she picked it up, and he was alone.

He walked back to his car in front of the apartment building. There was no sign of the previous disturbance, and nothing had had to be reset. Etna's ways were remarkably human, but as much as he hated to admit it, they worked. Leaning against the driver's side door of the black Audi and looking up at the window to the apartment, he considered going back. What use could they have for him now? If they needed him, they'd send for him. He decided against it, got back in his car and drove away.

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It was a week later when he arrived at headquarters in response to a call. The Architect, the Anomaly, & the Oracle were all in a conference room; Thompson was instantly on his guard. If Etna was mildly unsettling, the Oracle was capable of turning the world on its ear, and she seemed to enjoy it. Logic counted for nothing with her. At least the Anomaly showed a love for logic, human and flawed though it may be. The Architect spoke first.

"We have a new assignment for you," he said, and motioned to the door. It opened, and Tirzah walked in from the other side, looking somewhat intimidated. Thompson blinked, and he was sure he could not have kept the surprise off his face. She was wearing a suit identical to his: black, with a silver-clipped tie. Her shades were neatly in her pocket, and she had an earpiece.

Etna smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow in Thompson's direction, but the Oracle laughed outright and slapped the table lightly with her open palm. "Oh, I wish you could see your face, Mr. Thompson."

"Orientation, Agent Thompson," the Architect continued, as though the Oracle had not spoken. "This is Agent Greene. I believe you knew her as Tirzah." Etna said nothing, but watched him.

"Orientation?" he asked.

The Architect turned to Etna, who explained. "The peace has changed your job quite a bit, has it not?" Thompson nodded, and she went on. "Because of the different circumstances, we--" she gestured, indicating herself, The Architect, and the Oracle "--determined that the time was right to begin introducing humans into authority positions. We have not yet implemented this because of a lack of candidates. One doesn't find redpills willing to be re-inserted, and once the situation is explained to a Matrix resident, they almost invariably wish to be unplugged. As a condition of the treaty, we must comply with that wish, and, well...you see our problem." She waved a hand at Tirzah. "Agent Greene, however, does not have to be reinserted, and she cannot be unplugged." "Agent Greene" winced almost imperceptibly at this. Alarmingly, Thompson felt a small surge of sympathy; he ruthlessly squashed it. "As you are no doubt aware, Agent Greene has already been given the skills necessary to perform the job. The orientation is for both of you. Call it an experiment, but we want to see how you work together."

He nodded. Human logic, but at least there was logic there. "I understand," he said, and Etna smiled at him. He rounded the table and opened the door, looking at Agent Greene. She took a deep breath and visibly steeled herself, then walked through the open door.

They were in the car by the time she said anything. "I'm sorry they stuck you with me," she said finally, as he pulled onto the busy street. It seemed she'd been working up the nerve to say it.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "The last time you saw me, I was a blubbering mess of stupid human. The time before that, I tried to punch you in the face. You & I don't have a great track record."

"Just don't do either one again, and I will have no problems with you."

To his surprise, she laughed as though she found that truly funny. He had not intended it to be funny. "You know, I guess I'm an agent, now. I might actually hit you this time."

"Do you still want to?"

"Say anything about Smith being flawed and I will." She scowled at him.

"I won't." He was silent for a moment, then went on. "I don't know why I said it. I believe I intentionally provoked you. I apologize."

She stared at him incredulously. Her mouth opened slightly as though she wanted to say something, but she closed it and looked out at the street for a moment, watching the traffic in front of them. "I accept," she said, sounding a little uncertain.

Patrolling was considerably more complicated than it had once been. Once, there had been one objective: find redpills or Exiles and delete them. The peace had complicated matters, and the Anomaly & Smith had twisted them infinitely more. The terms of the treaty stated that residents who wished to be unplugged were accommodated. However, unplugging everyone was obviously not in the best interests of the machines. It was a fine line to walk. Etna also wished that as little code change as possible be used; she & the Zionites insisted the Matrix be as real a world as it could be for its residents. Exiles were no longer hunted, either; Smith had technically been an Exile program when he met Etna, and he was considered indispensable now. So patrolling agents were not to kill redpills, but they were to keep them from causing mass disturbances that caused a lot of questions. They were to do this without changing the code if at all possible. They were not to delete Exiles, but they were to keep them from flaunting themselves or any special abilities that might trigger questions as well. They were also working on a way to transport agents quickly, as Etna insisted they not use the bodies of residents, calling it "mental rape". Agents now had to be repaired when damaged. It was rather a bigger job than it had previously been.

He was explaining this to Greene about a week into their assignment. They were walking through a park near the downtown area; it had been the site of redpill disturbances before. "You should ask for a raise," she mused, looking sideways at him. When he looked blank, she smiled and shook her head as they walked on.

Shortly they came upon a crowd of people gathered in one spot in the park. Thompson made to draw his gun, but Greene put a hand on his arm and hissed. "Not yet. Hold on." As they drew nearer, the tension went out of Greene and she shook her head at him. "It's nothing dangerous."

He surveyed the scene from where they stood, some distance away. Most of the people were watching something going on; they were seated in neat rows all in the same direction. At the front stood a man, seemingly engaged in a conversation with a woman and another man. The man was rather overdressed for the park, Thompson thought, and he almost said so before he realized the woman was wearing a long, white, very ornate gown. It suddenly occurred to him what was going on.

"A wedding," he said, and Greene nodded. She was smiling vaguely in a pained sort of way. A few of the attendees noticed them. She gave them a nod & a warm smile, and began to lead Thompson off as they turned their attention back to the ceremony.

"Wow," she said, scrubbing her hand through her short hair and shaking her head.

"What?"

"You wouldn't--" she began, but stopped and considered him for a moment. "I was born into a world that I thought was real until I was about 7 years old. I was unplugged into the real, where everything was unfamiliar, cold, and hard. I sometimes missed things from the old world. Now I've been shoved back into that old world, where the things I knew & missed are everywhere, and somehow everything reminds me of the real." She shook her head again, and squinted up at the sun. "I need ice cream."

He'd been about to say something when she made this new, seemingly unrelated pronouncement. "Why does--ice cream?" he asked, entirely confounded.

She nodded firmly, as though this were the answer to all her questions. "Or bourbon, but there's an ice cream stand near the fountain. I've been there with Etna."

Before he knew what was going on, they were sitting at a small, round table with a colorful umbrella for shade. Greene had just seated herself next to him and set down...two milkshakes?

"Greene..." he said warningly.

"Cookies & cream for me, raspberry lemon for you."

"Why do humans do this?"

"Drink milkshakes?"

"Yes. Specifically when they're confused or upset."

Greene took a sip of hers, regarding him. "Observant, aren't you?" She took another drink. "We do it because it takes our minds off whatever it is that's confusing us. Humans get easily overwhelmed by problems, because our minds don't generally work in a logical, straightforward way. Our brains go off on tangents, try to consider a dozen things at once. We do better if we stop thinking about something for a while, then come back to it. Drink your shake."

"Why?"

She frowned at him. "Because I bought it for you and it's polite. You'll like it." She seemed very sure of this; her chin was propped in her hand, with her elbow on the table. She was still sipping her shake.

He gave her a flat look, but picked up the shake anyway. Whatever Thompson had been expecting, it wasn't this. It was tart and sweet and creamy all at once. His eyes widened, and Greene smiled broadly. "Wow," he said. She asked what he thought. He blinked a few times. "It's...cold."

"Of _course_ it's cold! I mean the taste!"

"It tastes like...lemon and--" Greene cut him off with a withering glare.

"Do you LIKE it?"

He thought about it for a few seconds, and took another drink. To his astonishment, he really did like it. He didn't want her to know, but she'd started smiling. "I knew you would."

"I said no such thing," he said, hoping it sounded flat enough.

"Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much," Greene laughed. "There's hope for you yet, Thompson."


	4. Chapter 4

It turned out, they worked quite well together. Greene was like Etna; human, yes, but a logical human. On the other hand, she liked life interesting. It was her goal to introduce Thompson to as many new things as possible. If there was something he'd never tried, she was going to make sure he did.

Sushi was one of the first, during the second week of their patrols. Heartened by the success of her milkshake experiment, Greene lead the way to Sekisui, her favorite sushi bar. They sat at the bar, and as the waitress came with their drinks, she chose 2 rolls from the list and passed the order slip to Thompson.

"Pick two."

Thompson looked startled, but he took the slip. Between the milkshake and now, she'd introduced sodas (he didn't like them), dried fruit snacks (he liked them), and made an attempt at a green tie (he wasn't having it). At least he was open to things. She'd been afraid that he would reject all these things out of hand; she was happy that he was at least being a good sport.

He handed the slip back to her. She'd chosen her two favorites: the "Tiger roll" and the "Titan roll", as well as an order of salmon sashimi. Thompson, on the other hand, had picked the "Volcano roll" and the "Fire roll". She looked at the slip and looked up at him.

"Feeling spicy today?"

"You've given me sweet things up until now. I believe that at some point you're going to want me to try something else, and it might as well be today."

"Very good point," she said, satisfied. She had just enough time to teach Thompson how to hold chopsticks before their rolls arrived. He was quite good at it right away. She showed him how to use the soy sauce and wasabi on the sashimi. His eyes brightened, and he took a nibble from the wasabi again.

"That," he pointed with his chopsticks, "is very, very good."

"What, the wasabi?" she asked incredulously. He nodded, mouth full of salmon. "Well, then, you definitely need to try your Fire roll."

He did, closed his eyes and sighed. Greene giggled delightedly. "You really like that! Ha! I should have known you'd be the spicy type." He looked bemused, but kept eating.

Food wasn't the only new experience she decided he needed. She introduced him to music, too. She liked a lot of zany humor music, and a little electronica. He, on the other hand, didn't have much use for the humor. He liked jazz, and from there discovered blues and jam bands. Anything with a lot of improvisation, he liked immediately. It startled her, a little; he had taken a liking to the least logical, most chaotic form of music. She didn't really like it. Unfortunately for her, he drove, so it was usually his music they listened to. One afternoon, he'd pulled the car up to the curb for her to get in after they'd patrolled a block on foot. Greene stopped mid-stride getting into the car and stared at him in open shock. Agent Thompson was singing. Very softly, under his breath, but he was definitely singing with the music.

"THOMPSON. You're singing."

His eyes widened and he suddenly looked indignant. For someone who didn't have emotions, he certainly feigned them extremely well, she'd noticed. He was constantly either humoring her or mocking her by pretending to have an emotional reaction to something. "I am NOT singing," he pretended to splutter.

"Yes, you were! And you sounded good! What th--"

"Don't be ridiculous, Greene," he said dismissively, and then, "Why do you smell like that?"

She was so taken aback that she wasn't even irritated he'd changed the subject. Of all the senses she decided she was going to introduce him to, scent had not occurred to her. "It's a perfume," she said, astonished that he'd noticed. "A scented oil; they're my favorite." He nodded silently, weaving through traffic. "This one's called 'Gingerbread Poppet'. It reminds me of certain holidays, from when I was very young."

"I see."

"Do you like it?"

"I liked yesterday's better," he said, and immediately looked as though he wished he hadn't. Probably had something to do with her astonished look. He sighed and looked resigned, turning his eyes upward. "I like the ones that make you smell like the park."

"...the park?"

"Like..." he struggled for words. "Like air, I think. And flowers and fruit." He shook his head. "Never mind."

He seemed very irritated, possibly at his inability to describe what he thought. She didn't press the issue; she'd seen him angry and she'd rather not see it again. If agents had any emotions, they were definitely somewhere in the anger spectrum. Greene silently speculated that whoever had created the agents had created a pack of very logical rabid wolves. Still, she smiled to herself. It was entertaining that he thought about how she smelled at all.

This afternoon they'd been assigned to Etna. As the permanent human ambassador to the Matrix, she was always performing some ceremony or another, and on the larger occasions, other agents were assigned to help Smith keep an eye out. Today it was a meeting to discuss the punitive measures taken against redpills guilty of abusing the Matrix in one way or another. The term "peace" was relative, and in this case meant only that no one was openly trying to murder anyone else. The truth was that this was a tenuous balance kept in part by Zion's perception of Etna's "humanity" and the Machines' perception of her as some sort of program. No matter what the disagreement, everyone somehow seemed to feel that Etna was on their side. Today's meeting was taking place in a park; there being little greenery in the real, Etna usually chose to conduct meetings in an outdoor area. Today's guests were important members of Zion's council.

The discussion had become mildly heated, and everyone participating was enthusiastically stating his or her case when shots rang out suddenly. Greene cursed; not 3 feet from her was a redpill with a gun aimed at Etna. She leaned her shoulder down, tackling the thin, bald man. She heard his arm snap as they both hit the ground. She thought that would be the end of it, but he clawed at her as if he hadn't felt the break. He wrenched his way from her grasp and wriggled over the top of her, reaching for his gun. She swung around hard with her hips, kicking the gun away and wrenching her own Desert Eagle from its holster. One shot and the would-be assassin went still. She flew to her feet and looked around; Thompson was standing next to a body and Smith was standing over two men, one with a black-hilted sword protruding from his chest. Greene didn't know Smith ever used a sword, and idly she wondered where it came from. The dying fanatic gasped out his final words.

"Abomination! Traitor!" he hissed at Etna. "An offense to nature. God demands you be destroyed!" He gasped once more and then lay still.

Etna, clutching her arm, was looking at the fanatic, her face unreadable as any agent's. It seemed at least one bullet had hit its mark; her arm was bleeding. She looked at Smith, who was the picture of fury itself, then around at the participants in the meeting, who were standing in various states of shock. One, Greene noticed, had managed to put herself between Etna and the gunman. She seemed to have taken a gunshot wound to the left side of her torso. "I believe we should table this discussion for another time. Tayla should be jacked out as quickly as possible," Etna said, rising and looking a bit unsteady. The guests hurried to comply. Smith took Etna in their car, and Greene and Thompson followed. They drove in silence back to the headquarters, where they made the requisite report. Etna had looked sadly at Greene.

When they were through, they walked back out onto the street, where the car was waiting. Greene wanted to head home, but it was a nice night and she found she'd rather walk. She told Thompson, and to her surprise, he offered to walk with her.

"I don't have anything else to do," he explained, falling into step beside her. "'Abomination', he called her. Why?"

She jumped, startled. She looked at him, then looked down at her hands. "There are those Outside who almost worship Etna as some sort of goddess. They call her The Infinite. It's silly; it was only an accident that brought her here, not some 'fate' or 'destiny' as they'd have you believe." She took a deep breath. "And there are those on the opposite end of that spectrum, who call her an abomination. They believe she is a mockery of human life, and an offense to some 'god' and everything he created. Those are the ones that keep Smith busy."

Thompson nodded. "You arrived via similar means to Etna. You will also attract the zealots."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Etna seems to have done me a favor. She used whatever influence she has in Zion to make certain that my name and the names of anyone else who successfully copies themselves are classified at the highest level." She put her hands in her pockets. "As far as anyone in Zion except my crew and the highest authorities know, I am nothing more than a new agent program. Etna even told them I'm female and have a more intuitive AI because she was trying to boost public relations with residents." She sighed, and looked up at the sky, straining to see the few brightest stars through the street lights. "That's part of what upsets me, though. She can't hide herself. She's common knowledge. So for me, and for anyone else who comes after me, Etna is taking all that hate that might've been directed at us. She's sacrificing herself to shield us, in a way." Thompson looked thoughtful, and Greene went on. "I love Etna. She's the closest thing I've ever had to a sister, and it hurts me to watch her do this." She kicked at an errant stone on the sidewalk.

"Why?"

Greene thought for a minute. Thompson's question was sincere, and he seemed to want to understand this. She was trying very hard to think of a way to describe love to someone who felt no emotion. "Love is an attachment. An extremely strong feeling that you're happier because that person exists. There are different types, but in all of them, the attachment is so strong that you would rather be hurt yourself than allow the other person to be harmed."

"And you feel this way about Etna?"

"Yes. The whole thing is her choice, and I wish it didn't bother me so badly." She took a deep breath and looked at the stars again. "I need a distraction." She thought a moment, biting her thumb as was her habit, and then she turned to him, looking curious. "Would you like to watch a movie with me?"

"I don't have anything else to do," he repeated. That was all she was likely to get from him.

It started to rain just as they came to her apartment building. It was the same building Smith & Etna lived in, but Greene lived several floors down, in a much smaller place. "I didn't really want anything as big as Etna's" she explained as they entered her apartment. "Have a seat on the couch." He did so as she walked through another door. It must have been the kitchen, because when she emerged she had two bottles of soda and a bowl of potato chips. She was also without her tie and coat, and two of her shirt buttons were undone.

They watched Greene's favorite movie, a silly but exciting pirate film. She didn't know how Thompson would take it, but really he didn't react much at all, except to point out which of the actors were actually Exiles. That was rather entertaining. Greene was surprised at one, but had the others pretty much pegged. Thompson drank his soda, and ate at least half the potato chips. He even had the tact to look mildly amused when Greene roared with laughter at her favorite parts. "Your social skills are improving, Mr. Thompson," she announced as she stopped the credits rolling across the screen. He'd gotten up, and she walked him to the door. "Anyway, thanks for sitting around with me. It was nice not to be alone, even if you do converse as much as the average houseplant."

"You're welcome," he said, stepping halfway through the door. "I will see you--" he began, but she had put her hand on the back of his neck. He looked slightly alarmed until she reached up and kissed him, at which point he looked simply stunned. After a few seconds of standing as stiff as a board, he seemed to realize he should kiss her back. He did, wrapping both arms around her and leaning his head down so she could reach him more easily. If he was any indication, Etna's theory that agents could learn anything physical very quickly was correct. It was the best kiss Greene had ever had. He responded quickly to every move she made, and even tugged a bit on her lower lip with his mouth. His lips were soft and his hands on her back were warm. She teased him a bit with her tongue, and was surprised when he met her halfway. She felt a flush rising in her cheeks and ran her fingers through his hair. He pulled her closer and made a soft noise--could he actually be enjoying this?

The thought snapped her out of her daze. "Oh my--Thompson, I am SO sorry," she said, disentangling herself from his arms and stepping backward through her door into her living room. "I have no idea--I don't know what--GAH!" she said, giving a panicked little flail with her hands. Her cheeks were flushed as red as they could go. "I'msorryI'llseeyoutomorrowgoodbye" she finished, almost unintelligibly, and slammed the door.

Horrified at herself, Green ran for the bathroom and scrubbed her face in water as cold as she could make it. With Thompson gaining more and more "personality" and human-like habits, it had become harder for Greene to remember he was an agent program, and not just a very introverted, socially inept, extremely attractive coworker. Today's events had her so unsettled that she'd simply forgotten herself. Leaning her head against the door jamb, she sighed. "I hope the crew was watching. I'm sure they got the biggest kick out of that," she told her reflection ruefully.

Outside her apartment, though, Thompson stood staring at the door, looking as though he was not sure what had just happened. He looked for just a moment as though he might knock on the door again, but stopped with his hand raised and reconsidered. He shook himself a little, reassumed his usual, unreadable expression, and headed for the elevator.

-------------------------------

Thompson couldn't help but think about it over the next few days. If he thought about irony he'd have certainly noticed it now; he didn't have a lot of information about kissing, and when he'd seen it in the movie he'd fired off a query to the system, just to clarify. Agents were curious, a necessity given the nature of their purpose. Not ten minutes later, she'd kissed him completely unexpectedly. For the first few seconds, he'd been too startled to do anything but try and assess the situation. Once he had, he realized that it felt very good. So good, in fact, that he didn't want to stop. And if he were going to be very honest, he really wouldn't mind doing it again. He'd been getting more and more used to Greene's presence, and by this time he thought he was somewhat attached to her, given her explanation of what that meant. He preferred her presence to being alone; he supposed if he were human he'd call her a friend. His only friend. He supposed he should be concerned that he was feeling anything at all, but he had certainly considered it all: it wasn't interfering with his ability to do his work, it hadn't resulted in any poor decisions, and so far it was actually pleasant. It had taken him by surprise when the kiss had somehow sharpened that feeling of attachment. He would like to see if the same thing occurred if it happened again.

Greene had refused to talk about their kiss during their patrols. He had declared this to be a silly tactic, and pressed the issue harder than she'd have liked. She began to answer him with increasingly unlikely threats. In the end, he decided to table the discussion when she vowed to throw him off the Grey Street Bridge, and then throw the car after him. He couldn't be entirely certain she was joking.

Patrols had been eventful as of late. There were more attempts to assassinate Etna; Etna didn't seem to worry much about it, but it put Greene on edge. Then there were the redpills who treated the Matrix as their own personal playground. And then there was the group of redpills who felt their mission was to announce the truth about the Matrix with a bullhorn. Luckily, most people had thought them to be about as credible as the man who stood on the corner of Park Drive and Preston Avenue with a "The End is Near!" sign. Nerves were frazzled all around as the Matrix summer wore on.

"Vacation," Etna had announced at her apartment. She'd invited both of them over for dinner. Thompson usually didn't eat unless Greene made him (or unless he passed that little ice cream stand in the park), but the Anomaly was well known for being an extremely good cook. Tonight she'd made a Thai dinner. She'd put extra red pepper in his, she said. Greene must have told her he liked spicy food.

"What?" Greene asked flatly, her bite of coconut fish and rice halfway to her mouth.

"It's summer. Everyone's squished together in this god-forsaken non-existent city, and everyone's going mad. We need a vacation. Even if it's only a weekend trip. We're all going."

"This is beginning to sound like a bad sitcom episode," Greene said. Thompson had no idea what that meant, having never watched a sitcom, but he couldn't imagine that Etna was including him, and said so.

"Oh, you're coming with us, Mr. Thompson. The more the merrier."

Greene sighed in a resigned tone. "Well, where will this farce take place, then?"


	5. Chapter 5

So it was that Thompson found himself in a dove gray cabin overhanging a babbling, crystal clear river in the mountains south of the city. It was vastly different than anywhere Thompson had ever been; none of his duties had ever taken him outside the city. The cabin was rather small; two bedrooms with double beds. The kitchen was tiny, but somehow Thompson didn't think that was going to stop Etna; she'd made sure that the cabinets had been stocked with all manner of substances incomprehensible to him. Whatever alchemy she did with those things somehow resulted in things that tasted good, so he didn't complain. Outside from the broad, open patio porch, Thompson could see the rapids of the river. The water rushed down over them, forming bubbles that reminded him of a glass of soda and resulted in a cacophony of soft, bright sound. He could smell the river, too. In some strange way he couldn't explain, it smelled cold. The porch was shaded by the enormous trees surrounding the cabin; looking up was like looking into a vibrant green quilt with patches of every possible shape.

Greene had changed clothes the minute they arrived. She bounced out onto the porch wearing a shirt unbuttoned over a camisole and a pair of jeans and handed Thompson something. "You change, too," she ordered.

"What? Why?"

"Because Etna said so." That would explain where the clothes came from. He looked back through the open breezeway door, where Etna was standing in a wrap skirt and tank top, waving her fingers and giving him a smirk he was more accustomed to seeing on Smith. "Besides, you look weird wearing a suit in a place like this," and Greene motioned above them to the rustling leaves.

He went back inside and changed as ordered. It was a sage green t-shirt and a pair of jeans. They certainly weren't his, but they fit as though they were. They also looked as though they were well-worn; the material was soft in all the places it would be if he'd been wearing these for years. The jeans even had holes in them. Definitely Etna's doing. Hanging the suit in the closet, he came out of the bedroom.

Etna was opening a floor-to-ceiling window to let the breeze blow through, and looked up as he came in. "Thompson!" she said in surprise, and stopped what she was doing. She put a hand on one hip and raised both eyebrows at him, then looked him all the way up and all the way down, very slowly. "DAMN," she said, and turned back to the window to tie the pale linen curtains back. Smith's head poked around the corner from the other room. He looked at Etna, then looked at Thompson and scowled before disappearing back into the other room.

"Hey, Etna have you seen the--" Greene said, walking back in off the porch, and her jaw dropped. She was staring at Thompson. "Thompson, you...I...wow. You look really good in jeans."

He blinked & looked down at himself. He couldn't think of anything to say. "This is where you say 'Thank you,' Thompson," Etna said as though she could read his mind. She frog marched Greene to stand beside him, and with a sudden movement plucked both their earpieces from their ears.

Thompson started. "What are you doing?"

"This is a vacation, dear. The idea is to avoid working." She turned with a flourish and waltzed from the room.

"I know you told me you 'don't have fun', but you don't have much of a choice now," Greene told him, not bothering to hide her amusement.

Swimming was the order of the afternoon. Thompson found himself in a blue pair of swim trunks and up to his ankles in the river before he knew what was happening. Smith & Etna were already up to their necks in the calm pool below the rapids, and Greene walked up beside him. She was also in a swimsuit; a sapphire blue one with a scoop neck and a very low back. She sat down on the edge of one of the rapids & dangled her legs in the water. With no ideas of what else to do, Thompson followed suit. Greene was looking at the water, watching it bubble and swirl and dance.

"You seem upset."

She looked up at him. "No...I'm just thinking."

"What about?"

"Whether or not I'm alive." Thompson blinked, but said nothing. "Whether or not I'm an abomination." She sighed. "There are people out there who would hate me for no other reason than I exist. For a human, that's an unsettling feeling."

"You are not a human."

She winced. "I know." Another sigh. "I'm not really anything."

"Yes, you are. You're an agent," he told her.

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Thanks, Thompson." She promptly shoved him off the rapids into the pool below.

He'd never been underwater before, and he found it quite pleasant. The water was very cold, but since the sun was hot, that was a good thing. He found he couldn't see very well, but the bubbles from the rapids rippled through his hair, and he could feel the differences in current from his feet to his knees up to his chest and face. He thought he heard yelling above the water, but he couldn't be sure; he couldn't hear well under the water either.

Suddenly someone grabbed his arm and hauled him up. "--but he doesn't know how to swim," Smith was finishing. "His version wasn't meant to leave the city, and swimming was never installed."

Greene was laughing uncontrollably. "I didn't mean to drown you, Thompson."

"I don't have to brea--" he started, but she bounced off the rapid into the water beside him.

"I'm going to teach you how to swim."

"My earpiece is--" he began, but Greene interrupted again.

"You're not going to download it. I'm going to teach you." And for the rest of the afternoon she did exactly that. It was interesting, "learning" something as opposed to simply knowing it. It involved a lot of explanation and trial and error. There was also a lot of splashing and sinking on Thompson's part and laughing on Greene's part. An afternoon of this, and they were sitting back on the rapids where they'd been before as the sun went down. Etna & Smith had long since gone back to the cabin.

"Who taught you to swim?" Thompson asked.

"There's not really enough water for that in the real. I downloaded it," she admitted sheepishly. Thompson gave her a flat look and pushed her off into the water. She bobbed up laughing and wiping water out of her face. "Come on, I'm pretty sure Etna will be cooking dinner by now."

They went in, dried off, and got dressed. Etna had indeed been cooking; something was in the oven and the timer was on, and the whole place smelled of bread. Greene said she was going to sit in the den and knit for a while. It was another one of her inexplicable hobbies; Thompson couldn't understand why she just didn't code a sweater or a scarf if she wanted one. "I could not possibly explain it, Thompson. Could you bring me the little straw basket from second bedroom?" He obliged, thinking he'd sit & talk with her after he brought it.

As he passed the breezeway door to the porch, though, he heard soft laughter and murmuring. Arranging himself behind one of the long curtains so that he wouldn't be seen, Thompson peered onto the porch. There, on one of the broad, cushioned porch benches, were Etna & Smith. Etna was next to Smith but facing him so that both her legs draped over his lap, her back to Thompson. She was kissing his neck from the collar upward very slowly. Smith's eyes were closed, but one hand was stroking Etna's neck beneath the messy bun of her upswept copper hair. They were speaking softly, but between the wind and the river, Thompson couldn't hear what they were saying. Smith moved his other arm. Thompson couldn't see what was happening very well from this vantage point, but from the angle of the arm, it looked like Smith was touching Etna. It looked as though his hand were between her legs, and as far up as it was, definitely beneath her skirt. He kept doing whatever he was doing as Etna kissed him, until finally he seemed to have reached a goal. Etna must've thought so, too, because she gasped and threw her head back. Smith smiled a little deviously and kept moving his hand. Etna's murmurs didn't sound much like words, anymore, and her hand had moved to Smith's knee. She was gasping, and it looked like she parted her knees slightly to give Smith more room to do...whatever he was doing. Suddenly her fingers clenched on his knee and she cried out wordlessly and shook a little. Smith was smiling VERY deviously now, and Etna collapsed, burying her face in his shoulder. He whispered to her again, and kissed her long and softly, much more gently than Thompson would've expected to see from Smith.

Two things suddenly occurred to Thompson: Greene would be waiting on him for this basket, and he got the very distinct idea that if Smith had known he was watching, he would've ripped Thompson's arms off. He had much higher privileges than a regular agent, and Thompson was quite sure he was capable. He hurried back into the den with Greene's little basket of knitting things.

"What took you so long?" she asked, and then looked up at him from the crimson and purple shawl she was making. "Are you okay? You look..." she trailed off, unable to put her finger on what he looked like.

"I'm fine," he said, putting the whole scene out of his head. He sat beside her on the couch and they talked about nothing while she knitted. Eventually supper was ready, and Smith & Etna came back in. Both looked rather pleased with themselves and continually looked at each other throughout the evening. Thompson had no doubt that whatever they'd been up to, they were going to be up to more of it after they'd gone to bed. After dinner and drinks and some mildly amusing gossip, Smith & Etna excused themselves to do just that, leaving Thompson and Greene alone. He sat beside her on the couch again as she worked a little more on the shawl. He sat close enough that they touched, but she didn't seem to notice.

He thought about what he'd seen earlier. He knew Smith had an attachment to Etna; it was well-known that he loved her. He supposed that's what Greene meant about "different types" of attachment. Smith's love for Etna and Greene's love for her were obviously somewhat different. He thought about his own newly discovered attachment to Greene. He was certainly more interested in life since he met her. He much preferred her company to being alone, and he felt somehow different when he was with her. He wondered if that meant he "loved" her. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if she was attached to him in any way at all, love or not.

After a while she started to yawn, and interrupted his thoughts. "I suppose we should turn in for the night, too," then she looked curious. "Do you sleep? Smith does, but I think he only got into the habit because of Etna."

"I don't usually, but I can. I may as well, since 'this is a vacation'." He did a rather decent impression of Etna. Greene giggled and left her knitting on the couch as they headed for the other bedroom.

There were two double beds in their room, and Greene made a point of lying on both of them several times before deciding which one she wanted. Thompson smiled as she bounced on the one near the window for the 3rd time, pronounced it "softer" and claimed it. She looked up, surprised. "You're smiling at me!"

He didn't stop. "It seems I am."

She seemed pleased, then for a fleeting second annoyed, but then she shook her head and assumed a false sense of gravity. "Turn around, Thompson. I have to change," and at his blank look, she added "into the clothes I sleep in. Yours are right there." She pointed. Though he saw no reason to do it, he thought he might as well wear them since they were there. He was going to sleep; he might as well do the whole thing the way she did. He stripped off his shirt.

She jumped visibly. "THOMPSON!" she yelped, and hid her face when he unbuttoned his pants.

"Greene, you're being ridiculous," he said as he changed. Nevertheless, she kept her face hidden as he put on the clothes she'd pointed out. There was a pair of pants made of some soft material and a shirt that matched, but the buttons irritated him so he left it off. He sat on his bed when he was done. She finally looked out from behind her fingers. He sat, obviously not going to give in to her insistence that he should "turn around" while she changed. When he didn't move, she sighed and moved off her bed to put on her nightclothes.

Hers turned out to be rather different from his. It was a short, swingy sort of dress made of a material he'd never noticed before. It was solid blue, which seemed to be Greene's favorite color. She stepped out of her jeans and took off her shirt with a great deal of scowling at him, and then slid the gown on over her underclothes, which Thompson also noted were blue. She marched over to stand in front of him, kicked him in the shin, and demanded "There. Happy?"

He was mesmerized by the material of her gown, though. Without thinking, he reached up and caught the hem of it, feeling it between his thumb & forefinger. He then slid his hand from the hem upward along her hip to her waist. It had a glossy, filmy texture, and was very slippery. It caught the light in different ways depending on which way it was turned. He liked the feel of it, and looked up at her to tell her, but the words died in his mouth as he saw her face.

Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes closed. Her bottom lip quivered as though she was trying to say something but couldn't quite manage it. Her cheeks were flushed. He was startled, wondering at first what he'd done wrong, but she finally got her words out. "Wow, Thompson." He suddenly realized that what he'd just done felt good to her. He did it again, this time with both hands. She shuddered; he thought she might collapse. She looked down at him where he sat on the edge of his bed. Her eyes looked somehow fierce. Suddenly he wanted very much to do to Greene whatever Smith's touching had done to Etna. He stood up and kissed her softly.

Wearing this instead of her uniform clothes, she felt smaller. He caressed her back with both hands the way he'd done her hips, and she seemed to melt into him. Her tongue found his, and they kissed as they had outside her apartment. He had been right; the errant emotions she'd been causing in him did get sharper again. At that very moment, he didn't care what happened in the rest of the universe. The whole Matrix could fall apart around him, and as long as she was right here, it wouldn't concern him in the least. She stroked the back of his neck and it felt like his skin was on fire. Her lips were somehow both soft and firm, and when she used them to tug on his lower lip as he'd done to her, he felt like he might explode. He pulled her closer and ran his hands along her hips again; she moaned her approval into his mouth.

It was Greene who finally broke the kiss, to his intense disappointment. He leaned down to try and reach her mouth again, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. "If we don't sit, I'm going to fall down," she said, still stroking his hair with the other hand. He nodded, and she sat down on her bed & drew him down next to her. The instant he sat down, she pressed her lips against his, and this time he was the one groaning in approval. He ran his hands around her waist again, and as she seemed to enjoy it, began to touch other places. With one hand on the small of her back, the other roamed over her gown, stroking her anywhere she seemed to particularly enjoy it. He slid upward over her breast and she broke the kiss again, this time to gasp in pleasure and surprise. "Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea what you're doing?" she breathed into his mouth.

"No," he answered honestly, trying desperately to kiss her again. She smiled, looking genuinely amused. Her brown eyes, still fierce, seemed to sparkle with some light that hadn't been there before. He kissed her again, moving his hands to touch her legs. She gasped and clutched at his shoulders. Everywhere he touched her seemed to please her. He suddenly thought of the swimming lessons earlier that day. "Teach me. Please," he whispered.

Something in her seemed to unwind, and she sighed. Seeming to make a decision, she took both hands from his shoulders and grasped the hem of her gown. In one quick move, she'd drawn it off over her head and tossed it to the floor. She sat on his lap facing him with one leg on either side of his. "Touch me," she told him, and began to kiss his neck the way he'd seen Etna doing to Smith. He knew why Smith had closed his eyes; the feeling was almost too much to process. It was necessary to shut everything else out. He put his hands at her waist again and was startled to find her skin was just as soft as the gown had been. It was warm and smooth, and he began to slide his hands over her. He could tell when he'd reached a place she liked because she'd moan into his neck softly, which nearly sent him flying each time. When he reached her breasts, she hissed slightly in anticipation and reached behind her back. She sent her bra into the floor beside her gown.

He slid his fingers over her breasts, and she squirmed in his lap. Her breath came in little, ragged gasps. She opened her mouth and began to slide her tongue over his collarbone. He groaned in pleasure, and she answered with another long, slow stroke. When his fingers reached her nipple, she threw back her head. She seemed unable to make a sound. Thinking of how it felt for him, he leaned his face down and began to kiss her collarbone. She kissed the top and side of his head softly as he mirrored what she had done. Looking at her breasts below, he suddenly had an idea. Mouth still open, he ran his tongue down one breast and onto the nipple in a long, smooth movement, and took it in his mouth as his fingers toyed with the other. Every muscle in Greene's body tensed up, and she made a throaty whimper. Before he had time to protest, she moved off his lap and slid out of her panties, then climbed back onto the bed, where she motioned for him to lay beside her. He did, turned onto his side so he could look at her. It had just occurred to him he'd never really looked at her.

She was tall, and her legs were long. Her body seemed to be made of all curves and softness, covered in her remarkably soft skin. Her breasts were not big, but they curved beautifully, and the nipples were rosy and erect where he'd touched them. She kept her hair longer now than when he'd first seen her, and the dark blonde fell in long, straight lines until it twisted into big, round curls near the ends, just below her shoulders. Her shoulders were broad, for a woman, with sharply defined collarbones that made her look like a sculpture. She'd always looked like just another person before, but now, looking at her as if for the first time, she was obviously the most beautiful creature in existence.

"Here," she whispered into his ear, kissing along his jaw and setting his heart racing again. He had no idea why this should make him breathe this way, but his breath was coming in gasps, just the same as hers. She took his hand and guided it to her thigh, which he began to stroke the way he'd done her waist. She nodded wordlessly into his shoulder, and moved his hand slowly between her legs. She parted her thighs to make room for his hand. When he had reached the apex, she indicated for him to slide upward with his fingers a little more. If the rest of her skin was soft, it was nothing compared to this. It felt warm and slippery and delicate. He didn't have long to think about it, because she writhed against him and whispered urgently against his shoulder "There!" He moved his fingers again in a slow circle, rubbing the spot she'd led him to. She moaned his name as if it was a prayer and her kisses along his shoulder were punctuated with little bites. He kept stroking, and she kept whispering and kissing and suddenly her whole body went rigid and she clutched at him frantically. In his excitement he kept stroking her, using his other hand to lightly pinch one of her nipples. She cried out and bucked her hips, then collapsed against him looking utterly spent.

He'd done it. He was elated. "Did you like it?" he said in a breathless half-laugh, with a broad smile. "Did I do it right?" Greene didn't say anything; she just nodded and kissed him and moved her hands--

And suddenly her hands were stroking him through his pants. She had slid her hand up his thigh very intentionally, as though she were on a mission. He'd never been touched like this before; every fiber in his body felt her. There was a roaring noise in his ears and he felt himself harden beneath her hand. Sensations he didn't know existed sprang to life beneath her touch and seemed to course through his body with an unnatural speed. "Greene!" he gasped. "What--"

"Your turn," she said, and tugged his pants down over his hips. He kicked them off his ankles and she pushed at his hip, motioning for him to turn over so that he lay on his back. He did, and gasped as her hand went between his legs again, teasing and tickling. Her hands were soft and gentle, but her caresses were firm and deliberate. He moaned and pressed his hips toward her. She stroked from the base of him to the very tip, and as far as he knew, nothing else existed but her. He was babbling now, begging her not to stop, telling her how good it felt, pleading with her to touch him more. She smiled at him through their kiss, still stroking him with long, gentle caresses that sent exquisite shocks down his thighs. He began to moan the way she had, chanting "yes" and "please" and groaning her name as she kissed his neck. Suddenly she slid one leg across him and down the other side, so that she was sitting astride him, warm against his almost painful erection. She smiled down at him, and he tried to say something, anything to tell her how she made him feel. In a smooth motion, she moved her hips towards him and sank downward onto him, groaning as her body took him in.

His hands flew to clench the sheets beneath him and a yell tried to form in his throat, but he couldn't make a sound. He was inside her, inside that warm, slippery, soft place. Pleasure so intense it was just on the threshold of pain was radiating through him, beginning where their bodies connected. It was wet and tight and hot around him, and he begged harder. He didn't even know what he was begging for, now. Every thought had been shoved out of his mind. The only thing he knew, the only thing he cared about, was her.

He touched her breasts and her nipples and her face and her shoulders and arms, sliding his hands everywhere he'd touched that made her moan. He wanted her to feel what he felt. He looked at her face; her cheeks were flushed and each time she moved, sliding him nearly all the way out and then taking him back in again, she gasped. He smiled through the fog of ecstasy; she felt it, too. He laughed, elated again, and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his hips upward to meet her. There could not be anything so perfect as the fact that giving her pleasure felt this profoundly incredible. Each time he moved into her, she groaned and moved her hips toward him. Her fingers played over his chest and touched his cheek; impulsively he turned to kiss them as they passed. She lowered her lips onto his, and their tongues met again as their bodies moved against each other. "More," she pleaded into their kiss.

"Anything," he swore to her fervently, touching her jaw with his fingertips, then bringing them down over the tops of her breasts and teasing her nipples.

It seemed that time stopped entirely while their bodies were locked together. If Thompson prayed, he'd have been pleading with every god that ever existed to make this last forever, make it so she never had to leave his arms. Suddenly she stiffened again. Without warning, the wet heat around him tightened and Greene buried her face into his shoulder, calling his name in a wail. She rocked her hips against him and everything became tighter and tighter until he called out for her, too, and something inside him suddenly released. Waves of agonizing pleasure shot through him over and over; he closed his eyes. It seemed to last a thousand years before it subsided, and he was aware of Greene, collapsed over him, breathing his name, her face on his chest. He leaned his chin down to kiss the top of her beautiful head, still smiling and half-laughing through his exhaustion.

Looking a little drowsy, but flushed and smiling herself, Greene slid down beside him and curled up in the crook of his arm. "So how did you like it?" she asked, her hair spreading out soft on his shoulder. He didn't want to speak; he just looked at her, a startling brightness in his green eyes, smiled, and kissed her softly, snuggling her closer in his arms. "I guess that means it was good," she said, and he nodded, putting his forehead against hers.

He had a sudden moment of doubt that hit him with a feeling of anxiety. "I can go back to my bed, if you'd like. So you can sleep." He desperately wanted to stay next to her, and a wave of relief settled over him as she shook her head and curled deeper into his arms, already drifting off. As he listened to her slow, even breathing, enjoying the feeling of her weight and bare skin against him, Thompson knew without a doubt that he was happy.


	6. Chapter 6

Sunlight filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling window woke Thompson. He smiled instantly, remembering why he was in this particular bed and who had been nestled in his arms when he fell asleep. He leaned down to kiss the top of Greene's head only to find she wasn't there. He sat up quickly and looked around; he was alone in the room.

A horrible sinking feeling seemed to hit him in the pit of his stomach. Scrambling to put his pants on, he flung the door open and looked out into the short hallway. Nothing. He vaulted across the hallway in one step, intending to check the room that held the kitchen and den. The instant he came through the door, he found Etna standing in his way, radiating pure fury.

"What did you do to her?" she hissed in a low voice, and advanced on him.

Thompson backed up a pace and frantically scanned the room. Greene wasn't there. She wasn't in the cabin at all, and if Etna's reaction meant what he thought, she had been unhappy when she left it. He gasped as the sinking feeling exploded into pure, searing pain. He tried to choke out some answer to Etna, some apology for whatever he'd done wrong, but he couldn't. His throat seemed to be swollen shut, and his mouth was dry as dust. His chest seemed to be trapped in a vice. It stunned him that an emotion could possibly hurt this much.

She had stopped, though, and was looking at him carefully. Smith had come raging in through the front door. Smaller though he was, he looked as though he really might rip Thompson's arms off, but Etna's look brought him up short.

"I got that question backward, didn't I, Thompson?" She put her hand on his arm just above his elbow. At her touch, Thompson choked again, and felt as though he might collapse. Smith looked confounded. "Sit down," she said quietly, and he let her guide him to the table, where she put a mug of coffee in front of him. "What happened?"

"We...last night, I touched her and then we...did something..." he was coming up short. He had never had a reason to download this knowledge before. It just wasn't a common occurrence among agents, and he had no vocabulary to describe what they'd done. "I must have done something wrong, but last night she looked so happy..." he trailed off.

"Wait." Etna, already wearing her earpiece, took his from her pocket and handed it to him. He put it on, and suddenly she was sending packets to him at a blistering speed. He realized quickly that she'd just given him the names for everything Greene had taught him last night. He explained what had happened and how Greene had been gone when he woke up. He thought perhaps Etna would be angry at him; he thought he'd made some ignorant mistake that hurt Greene, but Etna wasn't angry at all and she told him it wasn't his fault. Smith was standing with his back to the kitchen cabinet, drinking coffee. He was looking at Thompson in a calculating way.

Etna sighed when Thompson had finished. "This is my fault."

Thompson and Smith both looked at her in astonishment. Smith spoke first. "How precisely did you come to that conclusion?"

"I put them together," she told Smith. She sat back a little in her seat; she'd been leaning forward while she listened to Thompson's story. "Of the second generation agents, Thompson showed the most progress toward empathy & intuition. He needed some human interaction to teach him how to use those." She sighed here, and glanced at Thompson with a strange look. Sympathy, perhaps? "As for Tirzah, I felt she needed a purpose. She needed something to keep her busy, and not allow her to dwell on what had happened to her. It seemed like the best of both worlds, at the time, to put you together. She would be your human interaction and show you how to use your specific traits, and you'd keep her company and make sure she stayed busy."

"That part worked, evidently," Smith noted. Thompson glared at him; he didn't like Smith's flippant assessment of the most profound day in Thompson's life.

Etna laughed mirthlessly. "It was working. Thompson has made more progress than either I or the Oracle expected to this point. The problem is, you came to terms with your emotional capacity faster than Tirzah's ability to process that fact," she said to Thompson. "She doesn't understand that you can actually feel."

"But I still don't understand why she left." Thompson found his voice sounded plaintive.

"Thompson, she doesn't believe you are capable of feeling about her the same way she feels about you."

A feeling exploded in Thompson's chest and rose into his throat. "She feels something for me?" he asked. This had to be hope.

Etna gave him a genuine, somewhat pitying smile. "I think she's falling in love with you." The hope seemed to be fluttering, beating against the inside of his chest. "But she thinks that, to you, last night was nothing more than trying a milkshake or learning to swim or listening to music."

Thompson looked up in alarm. "No! That's not at al--" Etna cut him off.

"I know that, Thompson. It's perfectly obvious to anyone that you've been falling in love with her for at least the past month." Thompson was dumbfounded. How on earth could Etna have known that if he hadn't known it himself? She went on. "You'd rather be with her than be alone. In some way you can't explain, it bothers you to see her upset. Some things start to remind you of her, and you come to feel preferences for those things." Thompson blinked at her. He'd been wrong. She was worse than the Oracle; she took feelings and threw them back in your face logically. "By the time I met Smith, I'd been here for more than half a century. I had seen so many Exiles do things that I thought only humans did for each other. I was ready to believe that someone born of code had the same emotional capacity as someone born of DNA. Tirzah is not."

At the last sentence, that hopeful knot in his chest had withered, and the horrible, aching emptiness had gotten worse. No wonder humans seemed unpredictable; any emotion this strong was simply impossible to ignore. He put a hand over his eyes. She had no idea what she meant to him. Here he sat, his newfound heart shattered into tiny, sharp pieces, and she thought he couldn't feel at all. A hundred emotions she'd taught him to feel and every new one she'd given him just last night, and she thought he had simply been using her to gain a new experience. That last thought pierced through the fog that surrounded his thoughts with a sudden flash of anger. "It doesn't matter if she believes it or not!" He took his hand from his eyes and glared at Etna. "I feel it regardless of what she's ready to think!"

Smith made a noise that sounded like agreement. Etna cupped her chin in her hand, elbow on the table. "So what do you want to do?"

He scowled again. "I want to tell her. I want to make her understand." Part of him could barely comprehend that he was saying this.

"Understand what?" Smith prompted.

"That I love her!" There. He'd said it. If Smith was flawed, well then, so was Thompson.

Etna slapped the table and laughed. "That's what I wanted to hear," she said, and Smith nodded approvingly. Etna announced they were going back to the city.

Once they were in the car, Etna began accessing the system, watching for something. She finally found it. "Oh, no."

"What?" Thompson asked, alarmed.

"Tirzah's requested reassignment and gotten it. With Jackson." Thompson snarled, and forced down a sudden urge to break Jackson's legs. Etna rejected that assignment and re-assigned Greene a patrol of her own. Again, he thought Etna might be able to read his mind.

Etna & Smith both sent him packets of information as fast as he could process them. Greene's history, restaurants she liked, concert dates, favorite scents, behavioral tutorials, and to Thompson's great surprise, more information about sex--from Smith.

Thompson looked visibly startled. "Does that work?"

"Yes," Smith said, very emphatically.

"I do not ever want to know what you just sent him," Etna said in a warning tone from the back seat.

They dropped him off at his apartment; Etna was going straight into headquarters to oversee Greene's reassignment. Once he was alone, all the energy seemed to drain out of him. He threw his suit jacket onto his couch and headed into the bedroom, where he sat down on the corner of his bed, trying to process all the new information he had, not only from Smith & Etna, but from Greene.

Etna had sent him her research regarding the agent programs in an attempt to help him make sense of the fact that he had emotion at all. Certain character traits were necessary in agents, given the job they had to do. They needed to be wary, curious, alert, and motivated. This was a fairly wide variety of emotion on its own, and therefore some intuition was programmed into every single agent by necessity. They were also extremely high level AI; necessary if they were to function autonomously without constant intervention from the Architect or Oracle. According to Etna's theory, artificial intelligence always seeks to expand its' experience, simply by nature. Experiences would enhance the agent emotional range by introducing preferences, which led to emotions like happiness. What Greene had unintentionally done was speed up the process by exposing Thompson to all the different experiences and by simply being human. His curiosity about her had led him to observe her closely, and his observation of her had given him the urge to experience things the way she did. The cumulative effect on Thompson, went Etna's theory, was to make him capable of becoming very strongly attached to Greene, which he promptly had. It certainly didn't help that he had to come at emotional development from the opposite direction from humans. As babies, they developed emotion first, then cognition. Thompson already had cognition and logic, which seemed to be constantly at war with these new feelings.

He thought Etna was wrong, though, in part. She made it sound like he had to fall in love with Greene; that there was no other option. He knew that wasn't the truth. It was Greene herself. Her optimism, her enthusiasm, her unpredictability and her kindness. She didn't have to be nice to him. It had been entirely her choice to befriend him, and somehow that mattered. It wasn't just some combination of variables. She had chosen to be his friend, and that very thought sent surges of conflicting, confusing emotions through Thompson like a thunderstorm. The whole thing was giving him a vague sense of being overwhelmed. He remembered what Greene had told him about humans not being able to process many things at once, and needing a distraction. He thought he might know a little of what that was like, now.

He laid back and started at the ceiling. Just yesterday he had never slept before in his existence, and now he wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for a week. It occurred to him he'd never used this bed before. As he drifted off, he found himself imagining Greene lay beside him.


	7. Chapter 7

A few weeks went by, and Greene had settled into her new patrol. It was lonely sometimes by herself, but she and Jackson alternated patrolling the park, so she still got to see it a few times a week.

She hadn't spoken to Thompson since they'd been at the cabin. She knew he was visiting Etna and Smith for some reason, because she'd seen him entering and leaving the apartment building. She never looked right at him, but she could feel his eyes on her each time they met.

She went about her days in a routine, not bothering with the things she'd previously enjoyed. What was the point? She didn't need to eat, didn't need to sleep. Movies didn't distract her. She stuck with the agent uniform; it was easier that way. She stopped visiting Etna & Smith for fear of running into Thompson, and stopped going out except for the double shift of patrols she'd taken on. She really had no idea how much time had passed since the cabin. All the days seemed to flow into each other seamlessly.

It was a Friday, and she was sitting alone in her apartment, trying desperately not to think about Thompson, when there was a knock at her door. Startled and curious, she answered it and the crew of the Elbereth piled into her apartment.

"Get your butt together, Tirzah. You're coming with us," Gaia ordered, without even so much as a hello.

"Agent Greene to you," Greene scowled at her.

"The hell it is," Freja spat. "Black suit or not, you're still Tirzah and you are moping!" She emphasized the last three words as though they were vile curse words. This was particularly rich, coming from Freja. She had the foulest mouth of anyone Tirzah had ever met.

"Wait, are you all here because--"

"Because Binah has been watching, and she tells us you haven't been out of your apartment except to patrol in four and a half weeks," Rhiannon said. "You need some SUN, woman." She re-thought that statement. "Or at least a well-coded reasonable facsimile."

For the first time in four and a half weeks, Greene smiled in amusement. "THAT'S what I'm talking about!" Gaia cried, smacking her on the rear. She paused and pulled a face at the rest of the crew. "Great. First time I've ever groped an agent's butt, and it's Tirzah. Such a waste." She sighed melodramatically, and Greene actually laughed.

She thought this accomplishment deserved something. "Fine, fine," she conceeded. "I'll go with you."

"Not wearing THAT, you're not," Radha said, making a gagging noise and pointing Greene toward the bedroom. "Wear the denim skirt and do something cute and layered on top. And fix your hair!" she added as an afterthought.

By the time everyone approved of her outfit, Greene was wearing a knee-length denim skirt, a pair of wedge sandals, and a khaki jacket over a blue tank. Her hair was hanging behind her with the crown pulled into a brown leather barrette, in contrast to the bun she'd been wearing to patrol. They headed for a cafe Radha suggested, and sat out on the patio under the umbrellas, drinking brightly colored drinks and laughing. "So are you going to tell us what happened?" Gaia asked finally, leaning back as though preparing to hear Greene tell a story.

"What do you mean?" Greene asked warily.

"Tirzah, we saw what happened with you two."

Greene choked and stared at Gaia. "You...saw?" she asked, strangled.

Rhiannon spoke up quickly. "Not...all of it."

"Speak for yourself. I was riveted," Freja interjected.

Greene covered her face with her hands, elbows on the table. "I am going to kill all of you," she moaned, then took her hands off her face and glared hard. "And I'm completely capable of it, too."

Freja didn't look the least bit embarrassed. "But you won't because you love us. I'm still trying to figure out why you're being like this after a night like that," she said, and sighed the word "that" longingly.

"And that's exactly why I'm asking," Gaia said, and opened her hand at Greene as though giving her the floor. "Given what we saw, and what's going on now, I want to know what happened."

Greene sighed for what felt like the umpteenth time that afternoon. She drained her glass and motioned for the waitress to bring her another. "'What happened' is what you saw. I slept with someone who has no intention of--no, who hasn't any ability to care about me."

"So? I do that all the time," Freja pointed out.

"Yes, Tirzah," Gaia said as if she knew there was more to the story, and she wanted Greene to admit it. "Why does it bother you so much that Thompson can't care about you? He's ridiculously hot and obviously willing. What's the problem here?"

Greene looked skyward, trying to keep tears from welling up in her eyes. The underside of the umbrella glowed from the sun overhead; stripes of blue and yellow and orange and red tinting everything beneath. "Because--I want--," she began, but she choked and took a deep breath before looking back at the crew.

"You don't have to say it," Gaia said kindly. "We already know how you feel about him. We just wanted to make sure you did."

Green scowled through her brimming eyes. "Thanks ever so," she said sarcastically. "You're emotionally torturing me for my own good, somehow?"

"I have a confession," Gaia admitted. Greene tensed; Gaia's confessions were notorious for dropping bombs on unsuspecting friends.

"We had an ulterior motive," Radha said.

"What, you want me to get you a date with Jackson?"

"You could do that?" Freja perked up suddenly, train of thought completely derailed. "Ye gods, I'd like to see him in a pair of leath--"

"NO," Rhiannon said, elbowing Freja. "You're the one going on the date," she said to Greene, ignoring a very disappointed looking Freja.

"With Jackson." Greene's look was flat; they were obviously messing with her head.

"No, with him," Gaia announced, and lifted her drink toward someone behind Greene as though toasting them; Greene turned and her mouth went completely dry. Thompson was standing across the patio, looking as though she was the only person he could see. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue blazer over a white shirt, still wearing his sunglasses, and Greene thought the bottom might drop out of her stomach. He looked great in the uniform, but seeing him in street clothes took her breath every time. He had to be the most attractive man in the Matrix. He was holding a single red flower and had a basket hanging from his arm, and he looked so hopeful she could almost believe he really was hoping for something.

"What is this?" Greene said, much too calmly.

"We think you've gotten it wrong about him. We know what you think, and..." Radha said, and trailed off.

"Just give him the chance, Tirzah. Just go with him," Rhiannon urged.

"I cannot believe you ambushed me like this," Greene growled at all of them.

"What can it hurt?" Freja pointed out.

"It can hurt ME!" Greene whispered, feeling the lump in her throat again.

"But what if you're WRONG, Tirzah!" Gaia yelled in a whisper. "What if you're the one hurting you? What if you're hurting him?"

"It's not possible to hurt him, Gaia."

"I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but he looks--well, look at him!" Radha said, pointing.

Greene spluttered, then broke off and looked at Thompson. Why did he have to be so gorgeous? He looked more nervous than she'd ever seen anyone, and she sighed yet again. What if...? "Fine." The whole crew burst into smiles and giggles, and Thompson, though out of earshot, seemed heartened by their reaction. "But don't expect anything." She turned to walk toward Thompson, but stopped and turned around dramatically at the last second. "And no more code-watching! I am not your personal pornographic movie channel!" she hissed. Several of the restaurant patrons turned to stare open-mouthed at her. Freja feigned shocked innocence, but Gaia laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair. Rhiannon & Radha just hid their faces in their drinks.

"No promises," she thought she heard Rhiannon say, but she was walking toward Thompson, who looked like he was desperately trying to contain his broad grin. He was failing, and he gave up entirely as she reached him. He was positively beaming at her now, but she found she couldn't look him in the eye no matter how hard she tried. She was casting about for something--anything--to say, but he spoke first. "I thought you might like to get out this afternoon."

"I...you did?" He held the flower out to her. It was a red daylily--her favorite. She wondered if he knew that. She thanked him, feeling her face blush, and nodded her acceptance of his invitation.

"Then it's the park, and then a concert," he said airily. "I have an agenda for this very spontaneous afternoon." He looked sideways at her with a sly smile.

She giggled halfheartedly at the thought; only an agent would have an agenda for a "spontaneous" afternoon. She started suddenly, realizing that had been--a joke? She nearly stumbled in surprise. He'd been trying to make her laugh! This was completely unfamiliar territory, she realized as they strolled down the street making small talk. He was the same Thompson, halting and a little awkward, but there was something new about him she couldn't put her finger on. She suddenly realized she wanted this to go well; but if she wanted to have a good time this afternoon, she was going to have to get something out of the way. She steeled herself.

"Thompson, the cabin...aren't you going to ask me about--?" she couldn't finish. His touch, his face, the way he'd moaned her name, the way he felt curled possessively around her--memories welled up into her throat and choked her.

He looked very serious. "No, I'm not. I do not want the car thrown at me today. I like this jacket." Serious face never faltering, he winked.

This time her giggle was heartfelt, even if her confusion was stronger. He had tried to make her laugh again, and this time he'd succeeded. Humor from the lips of an agent was almost unheard of. She shook her head and smiled at him, and was rewarded with another one of his dazzling grins. He was smiling. In public.

"You LIED, Agent Thompson," she told him playfully.

"What?" He looked genuinely startled.

"'Neither my height nor demeanor ever changes,' you told me. You're still tall, but if you keep smiling like that you'll never be intimidating again."

"I could be intimidating if I wanted," he said, sounding offended. He looked very sternly at a group of teenage girls walking in the other direction. They giggled and whispered as they passed, and he gaped, half-turning to watch them. "They giggled at me!"

Greene had come to a complete stop on the sidewalk and covered her face with her hands, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe properly. Thompson stood there, looking from the giggling girls back to Greene, the very image of righteous indignation. She composed herself enough to grab his hand and haul him toward the park. "Come on, Scary Agent Man."

He muttered under his breath, but he went. "Silly little...ought to code them all to wake up bald tomorrow..." She was still laughing and he was still muttering as they walked through the front gate.

"What's the basket for?" Greene asked, amusement finally winding down.

Thompson perked up slightly. "Part of our lunch," he replied.

"'Part' of it?"

Without Greene noticing, Thompson had steered them into the farmer's market that lined the western edge of the park. "I thought you might like to take advantage of this for the rest of it." Greene looked at him, mouth slightly open, in delighted surprise. He said nothing, but smiled back and turned his open palm toward the stands.

By the time they were through, she'd picked out half a dozen of her favorite things: 2 peaches, a pint of strawberries, 2 tomatoes and a loaf of bread from an artisan baker. He ensconced their little picnic on a little hill under a tree, with a view of the entire park spread out before them. The ampitheater wasn't far, and she could see people milling around, setting things up for the concert. Thompson was uncorking a bottle of wine. She wondered aloud whether he knew how to pick out a wine or not.

"I have no idea at all. Smith recommended this one." He handed her a glass, half-filled.

She laughed. "Hopefully you hold yours better than he does."

"Smith is not very good at it?" he took a sip of the pale, rose-colored liquid. It was sweet & slightly mild; Etna had told him that Greene favored lighter wines.

"Smith can't drink much at all," Greene informed him, taking a sip. "Etna can drink him right under the table. Though usually she drinks him right into the sack." She wished she'd had the words back the minute they came out of her mouth. The last thing either of them needed to be reminded of was sex. Everything came rushing back to her again; she could almost feel his hands on her skin and see the mesmerized look in his eyes as he touched her. She felt the blush rise in her cheeks and took another sip to cover it. Thompson's eyes widened and he looked almost terrified for a moment, and then he drained his entire glass in one drink. He poured another one, and offered to do so for her. She accepted.

The picnic was perfect, after that. She showed him how to slice tomatoes and snickered that his picnic basket had contained a rather large bottle of hot sauce among the other things. There were no more slips of the tongue, but the memory seemed to hang in the space between them. Watching him lick the juice from the side of a peach sent her scrambling to bury her face in her wine glass again. She'd seen his eyes widen at her a few times, too, though she hadn't the first idea what she did to deserve those looks. Between them they polished off the entire bottle of wine. He did better than Smith, but just barely. He smiled much easier and more frequently as they neared the end of the bottle. They ended up wading into the little creek that meandered through the park. She tried to explain the concept of ornamental fish to him as they fed them bread crumbs. He looked amused as the little koi swarmed him. That smile of his reminded her of a little boy, and she told him so.

"Is that good or bad?" He sprinkled out more crumbs for the koi. A little gold one flitted around Thompson's ankles, earning himself his very own bread crust.

She thought about this for a second. "It's good. You seem almost enthusiastic about life. You seem to like everything now, and you aren't afraid of anything."

She could've sworn she saw a flash of something in his eyes. Sadness? Hurt? It was gone too quickly to tell, and Greene convinced herself she had dreamed it. "Let's head to the ampitheater," he said, without replying to her comment. He waded out and got their shoes. The ampitheater was attached to the park, and the flowers were a riot of color. Greene thought this might be the most perfect date she could dream up; the thought hit her with a bittersweet pang, and she tried to shove it out of her mind. The most perfect date possible, with a man who was incapable of feeling the way she did. She ground her teeth and brutally smashed the thought again just in time to get a good spot.

The concert was one of Thompson's favorite bands, and Greene found herself enjoying the music for once. Upon further reflection, she realized that it reminded her of him--further evidence that she'd let herself fall hard for him. Again she shoved the thought away; she was just going to go with this and have a good time tonight. She'd think about consequences later. Thompson had lawn tickets, so there had been enough room to get up and dance, which Greene had done. Thompson wouldn't at first; he insisted he wasn't very good at it, but he finally let her talk him into it during his favorite song. "Only because you asked." To her surprise, he did know the swing. From that song on, he'd danced with her every time she'd asked. She enjoyed an excuse to touch him, as bad an idea as her brain insisted that was. He seemed to like the dancing once he'd gotten the hang of it. He'd been much better at it than she expected, given his protesting.

The sun had set by the end of the concert, and they walked slowly out through the park. Though she had convinced herself by now that he was usually feigning whatever emotional reaction he seemed to be having, Greene was beginning to rethink that. He seemed genuinely happy right now, walking beside her. Testing this theory, she reached over and, without looking at him, tangled her fingers in his as they walked. She felt him tense immediately, drawing a quick breath and glancing at her. When he realized she wasn't looking at him, he seemed to...blush? Surely that had to be a trick of the light. It was dark, after all. He took a breath as though working up the courage for something, stopped, and turned to her.

"Greene, would you like to--" but he stopped suddenly, looking at her face. She was stunned to see pure pain in his eyes. There was no trick of the light here, and there was no mistaking this for mimicking human responses. It took her breath to see any emotion so obvious, so raw, staring at her from Thompson's usually stoic face. She started to say his name, to ask what was wrong, but he made a little noise in the back of his throat and kissed her, hands on either side of her waist.

Before she had time to think about her reaction, she was kissing him back, right there on the sidewalk in front of the world. She raised both arms to put over his shoulders, fingers immediately running through his hair. He groaned into her mouth as she embraced him, wrapping his arms all the way around her and leaning down into the kiss. They fell into each other instantly; it felt familiar and warm and comfortable. Her lips slid softly over his, his tongue drifted lazily over hers, her hands found their favorite spot at the nape of his neck. He made soft noises at her every touch, and he seemed to be trying to take her all in at once. His hands ran through her hair, caressed her back, touched her face, and pulled her closer. He held her as if she were the most important thing in the universe, and his kiss had all the intensity of someone trying desperately to say something without words.

She had no idea how long it was before they broke apart. "Please," he said. "Please come home with me." He kissed her again, thumb stroking her cheek. "I don't think I'm supposed to ask you that. I think it might be rude, but I don't want to leave you yet. Please." He whispered the last word in a pleading tone, forehead pressed against hers. She nodded, and he sighed in relief.

She'd entwined her fingers in his again on their way to his apartment. He had smiled at her, such hope in his eyes. She kissed him tentatively in the elevator on the way upstairs, and he responded with overjoyed disbelief. She kissed downward along his jaw to his neck, using her tongue the same way she had last time, and he shook, eyes tightly shut and fingers clenching into fists. She'd been wrong about him. She had to be wrong; there was no way he could fake this.

They stumbled into his apartment, still kissing. His jacket hit the floor before they'd left the entryway. She tossed hers onto the back of his couch as they passed it. In the bedroom, he ran his hands up her arms from her wrists to her shoulders, and she shivered in pleasure, starting on the buttons of his shirt as he sat down on the edge of his bed. His hands wandered up her skirt as she worked, and it was as if he'd set her skin ablaze. She jerked, and the last two buttons popped off. She winced and started to apologize, but he pulled her down with him and cut her off with a kiss, smiling broadly. He broke it only to pull off his undershirt, and she took the same moment to kick her skirt off; he stroked her thigh from knee to hip in one sweeping movement, admiring her as though she were the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. The heat of his gaze made her shiver. "We're really going to do this again, aren't we?" she murmured, punctuating the question with kisses.

He stopped suddenly and looked at her very seriously. "Not if you tell me to stop, we aren't," he told her, and kissed her fingertips. His eyes were burning with a fanatical intensity; they seemed to drill through her. She was reminded of the look Etna used to pin her when she wanted an honest answer, or to make an important point.

"No. Please, don't stop," she whispered, and he cupped her face with one hand as he kissed her. She let him guide her down onto the bed, her legs hanging over the edge. He arched over her, kissing her long & deeply before he stopped with a little lick to her lips, then sat back to look at her. He was smiling again. He had such a gorgeous smile, and she told him so again.

"I only seem to do it around you," he told her seriously. "You make me want to." She gripped the back of his neck lightly and pulled him down for another long kiss. He broke it, sliding his hand into the waistband of her panties. She gasped.

"Just lie there for a minute," he told her, and slid downward off the edge of the bed, sliding her panties down her legs as he went. It was a rather impressive maneuver, and Greene found herself remembering conversations from the Elbereth. It seemed agents were particularly adept at this, once they'd acquired a taste for it. He seemed to know precisely how and where to touch her and he'd only done this once. She wondered if the crew was watching. That was as far as the thoughts got, though, because Thompson had nudged her thighs apart with his hands and was kissing his way up the inside of her left leg.

At the first touch of his breath on her inner thigh, she nearly flew off the bed. "No," he said as she tried to sit up. "Please, just lie still." She did. She saw him looking at her, spread before him, and he made that noise in his throat. Raw desire was written all over his face as he slid both hands up her thighs and bent to press his lips against her again. The air felt cold against her wetness, and somehow that aroused her more. She could hardly stand it; as his tongue traced the inside of her leg she began to gasp. She felt entirely exposed and it seemed to heighten all of her senses. She could feel his every movement: his hair brushing the inside of her other leg, his shallow, excited breathing, his slight tremble as he came closer and closer. She shook, too, with the enormous effort of remaining still, gripping the covers on his bed tightly in her fists. He reached her, and at the first feeling of his tongue slipping in to reach her pearl, everything but him dropped away. She called his name in a throaty voice.

He groaned in answer, and the vibration of it shot through her thighs and up her spine. She moaned and pressed her hips upward toward his beautiful mouth. It was as though he'd been longing for this; as if she was water and he was dying of thirst. The flat of his tongue was pressing against her, licking upward, teasing, stroking, caressing. His fingers had found their way to her, and he slid them into her, first one, then two, as his tongue continued gently lapping. She was panting and gasping as he began to suck gently at her, still sliding his fingers in and out. She ran her fingers through his hair, trying hard not to grip it in her fists the way she'd done the sheets. She was sobbing his name in a whisper, completely incapable of any other words. His other hand slid around her hip, caressing her backside. He used the leverage to press into her harder with his tongue, using the tip to stroke her higher and higher. Just as it felt as though she would explode into a thousand glittering motes of pure pleasure, she did. The orgasm hit her so hard that it took her breath. She shook wordlessly as she tightened around his fingers and waves of ecstasy washed over her, one on the heels of another. Her entire world had shrunk to just the feeling of Thompson licking her gently, his breath on her skin, the feel of his hair in her hands.

By the time she could think, he was back on the bed, kissing her mouth again, his fingers still lazily moving in her. His eyes had never looked this green before. He sighed as if he'd been the one who'd just been driven out of his mind with pleasure. That thought hit her with a feeling of urgent need, and she stripped off her tank and bra and was working at his belt buckle before he could react. She wanted to give him back what he'd just given her. She slid her hand to the front of his pants, which were doing nothing to hide his intense arousal. He gasped and tried to say something, but she smothered his words with another kiss.

"Please," she gasped, pulling at his pants and the indigo satin boxers underneath. "Please."

He obliged, tossing off both as she stroked him. It was his turn to pant and moan wordlessly; she was kissing her way down his chest. He murmured her name and incoherent exclamations of how good it felt until she reached his erection, which she quickly took into her mouth, letting her tongue drift across the tip. His reaction was precisely the same as hers had been; he nearly flew off the bed and was sitting halfway upright before she could stop him. "Lie still," she ordered him, with a devious grin, and gave him a small smack to the hip. He laughed weakly and lay back on his bed, covering his face with his hands. She began to use her tongue, tracing along his length, swirling around the tip, anything she could think of. He gasped; she could tell from the tension he was trying hard not to buck his hips. She traced lines between his legs with her fingernails and sucked gently. He whimpered her name and gripped the sheets hard in his fists.

He lifted a shaking hand to caress her shoulder. "Please, Greene." His eyes begged. She nodded, and he sat up as she lay back. She found herself admiring him again, thick muscle under fair skin; he moved quickly and efficiently, but everything he did was somehow graceful. He lay beside her, touching, stroking, rubbing--he seemed to want to do anything and everything that felt good for her. Her breath was coming in gasps and near-sobs as he kissed her breasts, sucking her nipples gently, tugging lightly with his teeth. His fingers were between her legs again, gently touching her where she'd shown him during their night at the cabin. She spread her thighs wide, giving him all the room he wanted to do whatever he wanted. His fingers were moving inside her again and she moved her hips in time with his rhythm. She looked at his face; his cheeks were flushed and there was pure, unadulterated need in his green eyes. She knew the feeling; she'd never wanted anything more than she wanted him right this moment. She kissed him, teasing his tongue with hers, then broke the kiss to nod as he repositioned himself to lie between her thighs. She nodded and guided him to her entrance. Their lips met as he sank into her.

They both sighed as though they'd been waiting for this for a thousand years. She lay her head back and closed her eyes, savoring the feeling of him between her thighs. Thompson was whispering again, saying into her ear how beautiful she was and how perfect and how he'd missed her and how much he needed her. She clung to him, wrapping her legs around his waist, kissing his neck and telling him how good he felt against her skin and moaning as he teased her nipples again, pinching lightly with his fingertips. She begged him never to stop; he promised he would do anything she asked. After a few moments neither could speak; they just moved in time, groaning and gasping as though they couldn't get close enough to each other. She opened her eyes to look at him, and he was smiling softly at her, his green eyes warm with something she couldn't name. She stroked his cheek with her fingertips and he closed his eyes, leaning his face into her touch. He moved inside her, filling her over and over; it felt as though he would keep his promise and go on forever. She wanted him to go on forever.

He was thrusting harder, now, and faster, his fists clenching in the sheets beneath her. She moved her hips to meet him and growled his name. He leaned down to kiss her hard; she gripped the back of his neck in her hands and crushed him to her, yanking his hair slightly. He called out in pleasure, breaking the kiss, but she took his mouth back instantly, one hand now on his rear, pressing him into her harder. He muttered "please" every time she met him with her hips, his eyes glittering fiercely at her. He said her name, and it seemed as though he wanted badly to tell her something, but he couldn't get the words out. It didn't matter; they came suddenly, nearly at the same time. She stiffened and called his name, her hands clenching on his back. He shook, whispering hers, as she pulled him over the edge with her, crushing her to his chest. The seconds seemed to stretch out forever as they clung together, pleasure wracking them.

When they'd finally finished, he slid to her side, careful not to crush her. He was smiling again, that familiar, elated smile he'd worn the last time. He touched her face and let his hands roam over her worshipfully, still looking as if he'd never seen anything so remarkable. She knew the feeling; if she'd thought he was gorgeous in street clothes, it was nothing compared to him lying beside her, gloriously naked and completely unashamed. She could've admired him for hours, but her doubts had found her again.

She echoed them aloud. "Oh, god, Thompson. What did we just do?" She put a hand over her eyes, trying desperately not to hear the voice of reason.

He was nuzzling her hair behind her ear. "We made love," he said, sounding as though those were the most delicious words to ever roll off his tongue. His voice was lower and softer than usual, and he settled her firmly into his embrace and tugged the silky soft sheets up around them. He was so warm.

His wording only added insult to the injury her doubts were causing. She laughed a little ruefully. "I didn't expect euphemisms from you." She was trying to blink back the sting in her eyes; she didn't think she could stand for him to see her cry.

He propped himself up, one hand on the side of his head and his elbow on the sheets. He used his other hand to tuck a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. "That was not a euphemism. It's making love if I love you, isn't it?"

Greene's heart stopped. She could almost hear the silence in her chest. "Thompson, don't. Don't you say that to me-- if you can't--," she told him hollowly, her voice hoarse with the tears that were starting to spill over. She had to turn away; it hurt to look at him.

He interrupted her. "I am still trying to work out why you think I can't mean it..."

Her heart beat again, just once. She heard that one, fierce pound in the dead silence. Her eyes were clenched shut. The entire world was standing still. "Thompson..."

"...because I do. Everything is more interesting when you're there. You've taught me to feel a thousand different things, and somehow you think I can't feel them for you? Tonight when I said I needed you, I didn't mean for this." Her heart was beating again, but now it was racing faster than she'd thought possible. Tears had begun to slide down her cheeks, one at a time, but she was looking at him now. She couldn't look away. "I need you with me. You said I wasn't afraid of anything, but you were wrong. I am terrified of waking up here tomorrow morning and finding you gone. I don't know what I'd do. I've missed you so much." His emerald eyes shone brighter; could those be tears? He brought her fingertips to his lips. "I don't even know if I'm saying any of this right. I only know that I want to be with you, Tirzah. I know that I love you." He was whispering by the end of it all, sounding as though he was sure she'd laugh at him. She didn't. His use of her name--her real name--to tell her this, sent her over the edge. She burst into sobs, burying her face in his chest. Stunned, he put his arms around her. "Oh, no; what did I say wro--" he began.

"Say it again," she whispered, choking on tears and clutching him.

He paused in surprise. "I love you, Tirzah," he whispered into her ear, and she could hear the smile in his voice. She shook in his arms, then circled him with her own and pulled him as close as she could. She made him say it three more times before she looked up at him. Those were definitely tears. She hadn't known he could cry at all. "Please don't leave me. Say you'll stay with me tonight," he begged.

She shook her head hard, trying to protest that she wouldn't leave him, but she couldn't quite get her voice to work yet. Instead she pressed kisses across his jaw, her fingers tangling again in the hair at the nape of his neck. Finally she found her voice. "I love you, Thompson," she whispered into his cheek. He paused and made a soft noise, tensing slightly as he did when she touched him, then breathed a laugh and cuddled her closer. "I am staying right here," she said firmly, nuzzling his jaw. All of the tension seemed to go out of him, and he leaned into her, burying his face in her hair with a relieved sob. She could feel him gasping slightly, and held him tightly, stroking his neck soothingly with her fingertips, just the way he liked it. She whispered reassurances into his hair while he nodded and clung to her.

They lay there for a long time. She told him about Zion, about her crew members from the Elbereth, and about how she became a redpill in the first place. He told her about the Exiles he knew, about his life as an agent, and about the other agents. She'd had no idea they were all so different. It felt so comfortable, just lying there with him. She'd reach out and stroke his chest just because she could, and he'd sigh and kiss her hair and hold her closer.

He'd just told her about wanting to break Jackson's legs when she was reassigned the first time, and she was giggling. He was toying with one of her curls; he seemed enamored with them. "Even after Etna reassigned you, all I could do was think..." he trailed off.

"Think what?"

He took a deep breath, but the words still came out in a tiny voice. "What if you'd bought him a milkshake, too?" He looked like a little boy who'd lost his puppy.

The sound of his voice nearly choked her. "Never." She wasn't giggling anymore. Instead she hugged him rather violently. "Thompson," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I left you." Gaia had been right. How could she have been so stupid?

He sat up slightly to look at her. Her hair was spread across his pillow, catching the moonlight that was pouring into the window. "You don't have to say that."

"I know." She sat up, too. "I want to say it. I didn't know that I was hurting you when I left," she said, sliding her hand along his waist and behind him, bringing her lips close to his. "I'm sorry, and I wish I hadn't done it." She kissed him gently. "Forgive me?"

"You know I do," he said breathlessly. Her hand had slid downward along his thigh, ever so slowly. He knew where she was going.

"Let me make it up to you," she whispered against his lips. He shuddered, but he couldn't reply. She'd covered his mouth with hers and was kissing him, hard and urgently. Her hand was doing things between his legs that left him entirely unable to think. She broke the kiss long enough to lick his lips slowly and shove him so that he lay on his back where she'd been lying earlier. She slid a leg across to sit astride him, the same way she had during their first time together. She kissed his neck roughly, turning his head to the side. He whimpered in anticipation; he was already hard beneath her. She was arched over him, pinning his hands to the sheets above his head and grinding herself against his erection. "I'm going to make it up to you," she growled into his ear, then she bit his earlobe.

He moaned, closed his eyes, and let her.


End file.
